Chapter 8
It's been two weeks now since I've been to the acting school for anything. I've missed every class. It has also been two weeks since I've seen Bill or anyone else connected with the school. The phone has rung several times and I haven't answered it. The door bell rang three times but I didn't answer that either. It's the longest period of time I've ever spent without talking to someone I know, and it has been the longest two weeks of my life.
There is only one notation in my diary for the entire two weeks, and that was made the night I came home, the night Bill raped me in my ass. It simply reads, "Fuck off!"
Only now I'm not so certain that Bill did rape me, not precisely, anyway, just like Lilly isn't precisely a whore. But it was closer to rape than it was to making love.
Until yesterday I never wanted to see Bill again, but even my feelings about that are changing. I picked up the play yesterday for the first time in two weeks and read through it curiously, and I found that Lilly is suddenly a very understandable character to me; I even found myself identifying with her as a reader instead of an actress. And the part that confused me, the part that prompted Bill's attack on my ass, seems very obvious to me now. That was yesterday.
Today I feel ambivalent about everything, but not with the indecision of fear but with the calm ambivalence of someone who knows what her choices are and knows that what she chooses she will follow through with all the way to the sweet or bitter end. I have reached the crisis point in my life, the point where I must make a decision as to how much I want to be an actress, how much I want to give of my life to become an actress. I will either give up acting forever and move on to another way of life, not back to Topeka certainly, but on to some other kind of involvement, or I will go back into the acting school and Lilly and Bill and whatever and whoever comes along that is part of that life, and there I will devote myself to becoming an actress and handle myself as best I can.
It is Saturday and by Monday morning I will have made my decision somehow.
Monday morning comes and I wake early. I get up and make myself a big breakfast of ham and eggs and toast and lots of coffee, black, a real Topeka breakfast, a farmer's special, all in celebration of my decision. Then with a grim smile I walk the few blocks to the acting school, script in hand, and ask to see Mark Langstrom.
He's busy with someone else and I sit impatiently outside his office until he's free, then I walk inside and face him.
"Hello," I say with an easy tone of voice. "I wanted to ask you if I still have the part of Lilly?"
He is sitting behind a desk and all I can see of him are his piercing gray eyes and longish dark hair, and his thin yet broad shoulders, and I think that I should be frightened of him but I'm not, and I wonder vaguely why I'm not. He is scrutinizing me with a level gaze that shows nothing of his thoughts, gives no hint even of his mood or humor.
I know only that he recognizes me, knows who I am, and I wait patiently for him to answer my question.
"Where have you been?" he finally asks, noncommittally, avoiding my question. "We've tried to get in contact with you all week. You missed the first two staging sessions and the costume fitting."
"I've been thinking things out by myself. I wasn't answering the phone," I answer honestly.
He looks at me curiously, inspects me for games, but I easily hold his steel gaze because I'm telling the truth, and finally he seems to realize that I'm not playing some weird game with him, that I am telling the truth.
"I may be neurotic, but I'm an honest neurotic," I say, still standing easily under his scrutiny. "Do I still play Lilly?"
"As of yesterday you lost the part," he answers coolly.
I stare at him and don't know quite what to do or say. I can tell that he is telling the truth too.
"Well," I finally say, still relaxed and under perfect control, "That ends that."
I thank him and start to leave his office.
"Jennifer."
I hear his voice saying my name, and it startles me, not so much him saying my name as the way he says it, the soft tone in his usually booming voice. I turn and face him.
"Yes?"
"I haven't assigned the part to anyone else yet. I was going to do that tonight. What happened to you, anyway?"
"I had some growing to do. It kind of caught up with me all at once."
"Can you play Lilly?" he asks.
"Yes, I can play Lilly. Now."
He looks deep into my eyes and I feel his energy surge into me, a curious, compelling energy that makes me lose my easy control for the first time, makes me aware of myself as a woman as well as an actress. Again, as when I first saw him the day he handed out the parts, I am aware of his awesome power and his keen perception. I am thankful that I'm telling the truth because I know he would see through any lies almost immediately. .
"All right, Jennifer. You do that."
I walk down the hall to the wardrobe department with a smile on my lips and a picture of Mark Langstrom in my eyes. There was no more than that, his simple "you do that," yet it was the most encouraging thing anyone ever said to me in my whole life. There was no threat, no doubt, no judgment. Simply "you do that," simply, the way it should be.
There is a class going on in the wardrobe room and I walk in and wait until the teacher is through talking, then tell him that Mark Langstrom sent me in to be fitted for the part of Lilly. It is obvious that I have been the subject of some unkind comments during my two week absence because of my failure to appear when I was supposed to appear, and the teacher and even the students eye me suspiciously as if they doubt that I still have the part.
"Did Langstrom just send you down?" the teacher asks.
"That's right," I say, still smiling. "Yesterday he said you were through."
"That's right. Yesterday."
I notice that the students are all ears, and they are showing their own surprise at the sudden turn of affairs. It seems that I must have caused quite a commotion by my absence. There are about eight of them, half women and half men, clustered around listening to what is going on. The teacher shakes his head as if he doesn't understand it.
"Langstrom doesn't change his mind often," he says.
"Perhaps not," I answer coolly. I know that the teacher is a homosexual from hearing Bill talk about him; Bill doesn't like him even though he admits that the man is a genius with make-up, an artist. I can understand why Bill doesn't like him, though; he is too high strung and petty to feel very close with.
"Okay, okay," he says with his clipped voice. "You, get out the script and see what she needs," he says, pointing at a tall guy who is standing near him. "This is a class project as of now," he informs the rest of them.
Soon everyone is consulting their copies of the script and trying to decide what I need in the way of costuming. The make-up will come only on the night of the dress rehearsal. Eventually a dress is brought to me, a flimsy, filmy bargain basement special and I look at it curiously, trying to imagine Lilly in it, and it seems to fit the part. "Okay, dear, try it on, please," he says. I look around at the class and see them watching me eagerly, especially the men. I methodically unzip my own dress and step out of it, standing in the middle of the room in my bra and panties, aware of their caressing eyes. I know that my pubic hair is pushing out against my black silk panties, making a puffed V, and 1 congratulate myself on how far I've come in the past month for I don't even blush. A month ago I would have been bright red from doing such a thing, if anyone could have gotten me to do it in the first place.
I take the dress and begin to step into it.
"Wait," the teacher says. "Do you wear a bra or not on stage?"
"I don't know," I say, never having thought about that, about the possible effects of wearing or not wearing a bra for the part. It is a good question, though; not wearing a bra would give my appearance an added sleazy touch.
"We have to know," the teacher says excitedly. "Run down and ask Langstrom," he says, pointing to a girl standing near the door.
The girl walks away down the hall and I stand waiting in my bra and panties while she goes to ask. I can feel the sudden heat in the room and it seems that the men find reasons to walk around behind me to get a look at my ass. My panties don't hide much. The girl comes back a few minutes later.
"No bra," she says.
Without waiting for anyone to say anything further I reach behind my back and unsnap my bra. Then I casually pull it off and let my breasts free, look down at them jutting out naked and full. There is utter silence in the room for a second or two as all eyes are fastened on my boobs, then the teacher turns and says something to the girl who came back from talking to Mark and I step into the flimsy dress and pull it up over my breasts and over my shoulders. Even after my boobs are covered I can feel the heat of the men's eyes as they stare at me. I walk to a mirror and look at myself, and I can see why. The dress makes me look like a streetwalker, only a delicious one, one that would even attract my gaze if I were to pass her on the sidewalk. I look like sin and sex itself. The fabric molds to my hips and ass and my tits are plainly visible beneath the material.
"Too much," I hear a voice say, and turning I see Bill standing in the open doorway to the room. There is a sudden surge of panic in me as I see him, but within a split second I recover and smile casually at him, then turn back to the business at hand as if he's just another student at the school, another human prop to work with when I can use him.
The teacher expertly marks a few places the dress will have to be taken in and let out to fit right. This won't be the dress itself that I'll wear, merely the pattern for the actual dress which will be made from scratch by students studying costume design.
When he's finished marking the dress I step out of it and again I'm aware of the eyes of the men stroking my naked flesh. I turn just far enough to notice that Bill is still standing in the doorway. I don't look at him. I pick my own dress up and slip into it, stopping when it is up to my waist to put on my bra, then pull the dress up over my breasts and I am dressed again. The tension in the room relaxes and I pick up my copy of the script from the table where I laid it and turn, walking straight toward Bill who stands in the doorway, right in my way. I look at him nonchalantly, right into his eyes, with the same kind of level, noncommittal gaze that Mark Langstrom gave me, and as I approach him he melts back into the hall and stands there, waiting for me. I walk out into the hall and pause.
"What has happened to you?" he asks, almost bewildered.
"I don't understand," I say, really not understanding what he means.
"You look like a different person, and you act like a different person too. Honest to God, I hardly recognized you at first in there. I didn't know it was you until you turned around."
"Well, if it's a compliment, thank you," I say unemotionally.
"Yes, it's a compliment," Bill says, looking even closer at me as if he's trying to discover the exact difference in me, the change.
The last time I was with Bill comes slowly back to me, him kneeling over me, spreading my buns apart, driving his cock deep into my unprotected ass, the nightmare of pain and humiliation, of fear and hatred, and the chaos of guilt and self-doubt that spread over the two weeks after and ended only yesterday, yet I'm surprised how distant it all feels now as I stand talking with him, and I realize that my whole life before this morning seems like one long yesterday from which I've finally emerged. Today is a new world, a new life, a new me.
"Well, I've got to be going," I say, and I start to walk down the hall away from him, feeling his eyes follow me.
I turn the corner of the hall and head for the theater area, duck in through the stage door, and come out onto the stage where several people from the stage design class are hammering and pounding and sawing and arranging the set for the play. I look with curiosity at the emerging bar with the juke box and the few tables, the long bar with stools, and the clutter of deer heads and other musty odds and ends which look as if they came out of some corner bar in Topeka.
I sit at the edge of the stage and watch, fascinated by the chaotic order of their work, laughing at their jokes and clowning, and I'm aware of the fact that I really love the theater, love the whole collection of props, lights, people, and fantasies that make up this living organism called theater. Looking back over the past two weeks my decision to return here now seems as if it was predestined all along. Somehow I have become a part of this world, and leaving it would be a little bit like dying.
Time gets lost in the scrape of saws and the bang of hammers, and when I stand up to stretch and look at my watch two hours have passed.
A tall, dark guy in his late twenties comes over and we begin talking. He asks me my name and when I tell him he looks at me as if he's heard of me.
"You're playing the lead," he says. "I play Lilly."
"Yeah. I'm in charge of stage design. Well, Jennifer, do you like what you see so far?" "It's fascinating."
He says his name is Tony, that he once wanted to be an actor but found that he prefers stage design.
"I guess I've got more architect than actor in me," he smiles easily.
I like him and smile back easily. He's so down to earth and unassuming in a place full of egomaniacs that I feel real and refreshed with him as if I've just awakened after a strange dream. He motions me to follow him and we go behind the back curtain and he pulls a thin cigarette hand rolled in a paper designed like an American flag out of his pocket and lights it, takes a long drag, and hands it to me. I know it is marijuana and hesitate, but I feel too good and strong to get scared, and I take a long drag too and go into a coughing fit. Tony dances around me excitedly, raising his fingers to his lips in a shushing gesture of silence, and I giggle helplessly as I press my hand over my mouth to stop my coughing.
"Hey, I know what's going on back there," a voice yells from out on stage on the other side of the curtain, and other voices chime in until both Tony and I are giggling and laughing. They keep teasing us as we smoke the rest of the cigarette, and they smile at us as we walk back to stage front and sit talking. I feel suddenly very light and funny as if my mind is soaring above my body, and everything Tony says sounds hilarious. After a while he asks me out to dinner.
"You don't look very rich," I say, smiling.
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his money. He counts three dollars and seventy cents.
"Is that rich?" he asks.
"No, that's poor," I answer. "Why don't we go to my place and I'll cook us dinner."
By the time we reach my apartment it's five in the afternoon. I put on some food and we eat an hour later, then Tony pulls out another cigarette and we smoke it. I turn on the stereo as loud as I dare, afraid to bother the neighbors, and the music fills the apartment as if I have ten speakers going. I float up with it until I seem to lift higher and higher with each note, then suddenly I realize what a strange sensation I'm feeling and I giggle. Tony laughs and grins at me and I feel his eyes flowing into mine as I return his gaze. My perceptions seem almost electric as if I'm some kind of antenna that picks up on vibrations in the air, vibrations from the music and from Tony's eyes. Then a warmth spreads through me and I feel so fine and relaxed, so at home with myself and my body. I stretch out on the rug on my back and breathe deeply, my breasts rising against my dress with each breath. Tony is sitting beside me and I look up at his face and suddenly realize how Roman his features are.
"You're a Roman," I tell him.
"My ancestors were," he says. "I'm a Roman-American."
I laugh and then we remain silent listening to the music.
Almost without my being aware of when it began, I discover Tony's hand rubbing against my belly, softly, caressingly, and I close my eyes to feel the soothing sensation of his fingers. One part of my mind warns me to watch out, beware of what's happening, but another part laughs at this and mocks it as the old Jenny, yesterday's Jenny. After a moment of arguing back and forth in my mind, the new Jenny wins out and I feel my mind go blank, aware only of Tony's hand as it strays upward from my belly along my ribs and ever so softly moves over my breast. I feel my nipples tighten under my dress and my stomach muscles harden. His fingers search out my tit and then his mouth is pressed against mine and I feel his tongue parting my lips and penetrating into my mouth, and I wash his tongue with my own and lift my breast hard into his hand. Then my old self pushes back, sticks a needle sharply into my mind, says I don't know Tony, says not to trust him, not to let him touch me like this, and for an instant I feel the old, familiar sensation of suffocation coming over me and 1 push him back, turning my mouth away and pulling my breast back from his hand. He looks curiously at me and I breathe deeply, anxiously, and the suffocation passes. I look at him, down his body, and I see the huge bulge in his pants at his crotch and I know he has an erection and it's aiming at me. A flood of desire sweeps through me, sweeping the old Jenny out of my head, and I can't take my eyes off that bulge. I've never felt anything so compelling in my life, so utterly bestial as my sudden desire. My whole body is on fire with it, and I reach down his side to his pants and put my hand right on the bulge, watching what I'm doing as I do it and marveling at my own aggressiveness, and I feel his hardness jump under my hand.
"Undress," he tells me, and without hesitation I stand and pull my clothes off. feel his lips press into my cunt, his tongue sliding into the flesh of my crack.
He sits on the floor and stares at me, then he hooks one hand around behind my ass and pulls me close to where he sits. I feel his fingers working into my buttock and his breath on my belly. He takes his free hand and slides it sideways between my thighs and turns it, spreading my legs apart. Then he leans forward and turns his head, and I feel his lips press into my cunt, his tongue sliding into the flesh of my crack. It slides back and forth up and down the length of my pussy, parting the folds and caressing my pink flesh, then he finds my clitoris and his tongue washes it, circling and poking until I feel a throbbing that is almost painful it is so pleasurable, and I spread my thighs further to give him full access. I put both hands on his head and pull him tight into my cunt and begin a slow fucking motion at his tongue, thinking how lewd I'm behaving, how strange it is for me to be standing with my cunt in the face of a man I barely know and letting him eat me out, and how wonderfully delicious it feels. I remember the bulge in his pants and pull him to his feet, then I tear his pants open and pull them down anxious to see his penis. It pops out stiff and curved slightly upward, long and lean with a red bulb at the tip that's swollen huge. Without hesitating I clamp my mouth over it and feel it's fleshy, rubbery texture, and as I suck a sticky liquid comes out into my mouth and this excites me even more. My hands finger his balls as they dangle under his cock, cupping and stroking them, squeezing softly and feeling them bunch and slide in his bag, and I lick down the underside of his penis and poke the tip of my tongue tenderly between his testicles and feel him moan and squirm with pleasure.
I'm fully aware of how hungry I am for his cock and I indulge my hunger to the utmost. I can't seem to caress and lick his genitals enough; the longer he's in my mouth the hotter I get. I can feel my flesh crawling as he bends over and clasps my full breasts, pinching my nipples roughly, passionately, and my heart is pounding the blood through me like water rushing through a firehose. I can feel a trembling in my cunt and my legs are weak; I pull him down to the floor and he lies on his back. I go for his cock again with my mouth and he pulls me over him so my legs straddle his head and I lower my pussy onto his waiting lips and feel his tongue pierce my hole, his saliva merging with my love juices, his mouth washing my raw grotto, and I begin to fuck hard at his mouth, feeling the heat building in my cunt and sucking wildly on his cock. For the first time in my life I really abandon myself to sex, lust after a man's penis, throw all thought of morality to the wind, and every sensation is a joy and every lick of my tongue along his penis sends shivers through me. There is no mind left, just flesh, his and mine, and I'm feasting on his genitals like the love starved female I really am underneath my cool, old exterior.
When I can stand it no longer I swivel around and, holding his throbbing prick in both hands, I lower my pussy onto it, guide it up into my hole, raise up again, hear the sucking smack of my wet cunt around his cock, lower myself again and push down hard, feeling his member jab deep into me, fill me and ream me, and I begin to bounce up and down, my breasts dancing and jiggling, watching his face contort with the anguish of sexual pleasure. I screw him brazenly, unashamedly, with no thought of good or evil, and when he slips his hand around my ass and I feel his finger search out my asshole and enter it I raise up to give him room and delight in the perversion. He sticks his finger deep into my asshole and I moan and thrash on top of him, yanking at his cock with my pussy, and I come in a sudden and unexpected fit of joy, reaming with the full force of my orgasm, and Tony is right with me, jabbing up into me and pouring out his sperm in a swollen release. We continue to fuck each other until our strength gives out and I topple over beside him on the rug.